FDSN

International Federation of Digital Seismograph Networks

FDSN Working Group V on Portable Instrumentation

The Working Group on Portable Instrumentation was formed at the 2003 meeting of the FDSN in Sapporo, Japan. This working group will coordinate the activities of the various groups around the globe that deploy portable instruments in field experiments.

Areas of interest to the working group include:

promote the use of uniform data archive formats and access methods.

promotion of open access to data after an exclusive use period.

promote best practice among FDSN members.

develop and maintain an inventory of available equipment on the FDSN website.

maintain an archive of metadata about past, current and planned experiments through links from the FDSN website.

maintain a list of links to ocean bottom seismometer pools.

Recommended Data Format

FDSN recommend the use of full SEED or miniseed with dataless seed volumes as the preferred archive data format. This format is already in use across the seismological community and is the preferred format of the large data centres.

Recommended Data Access Criteria

FDSN encourage all users of portable instrumentation to make their data available to the wider community as soon as possible. All users should archive their data with a data centre which allows rapid access to the global community. It is common practise for groups to release their data by default after a fixed period, of 0-3 years.

FDSN Network Codes

FDSN recommends that all temporary deployments are assigned an FDSN network code via the online form. These codes provide uniqueness to seismological data streams. using these codes for all future experiments, a readily accessible database of projects undertaken by equipment pools can easily be maintained. Even if data are not archived with a data centre, the database would allow data users to find any potential collaborators who have been working in similar areas.